Paul McCartney says smartphones have made songwriters less likely to finish songs: “You always had to finish a thing because there was nowhere to put it”

Between voice note apps, mobile DAWs and AI assistants capable of generating lyrics and even demos on demand, modern musicians have no shortage of ways to preserve an idea before it disappears.

The result is a creative process that’s arguably never been more convenient – but also one that’s made songwriters less likely to finish songs, according to Paul McCartney.

Speaking in a recent conversation with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, the Beatles legend discusses how modern technology has fundamentally changed the songwriting process, by making it easier to capture ideas but harder to complete them.

Asked whether he always aims to ‘finish a song’ once he begins writing, McCartney explains that the process was very different before musicians had pocket-sized recording devices at their disposal. The arrival of smartphones, in particular, has removed the pressure that once forced songwriters to see ideas through to completion.

“The trouble is nowadays with phones,” Macca begins. “[In the past] you always had to finish a thing because there was nowhere to put it. You had to put it in your mind. So you had to finish it. So you did.”

Today, however, the 83-year-old has no shortage of half-formed ideas waiting to be revisited.

“Now I must have over a couple of thousand sketches on my phone because I’ll put it down and think, oh yeah, okay, I’ll come back to that. I’ve saved it. It’s okay.”

“Because of the luxury of a phone, if you don’t have long but you got an idea, you’ll put it down,” says McCartney.

According to Macca, some of those recordings eventually become fully realised songs, while others remain useful fragments waiting for the right project.

“There’ certain ones in that list of sketches that I will finish, that I know, ‘Oh, that is a good one’, so I will finish that,” he says. “And there’s certain ones that I kind of think, ‘It’s a piano melody’. If I ever get asked to do a film score, that can be the theme, you know? Whatever. Well, I like just putting them down in case.”

Later in the conversation, McCartney recalls working with four-track recorders, where every creative choice came with consequences.

“With the four-track, you’ve got to wipe things because there’s only four tracks and you may want to do eight things,” he explains. “You take two tracks where you’ve got, let’s say, drums and bass, and you reduce them to one track, which frees up these tracks so you can keep recording.”

Lowe notes that by doing so, you’re effectively committing to those decisions because “you can’t change anything”.

For McCartney, those restrictions were not obstacles but creative tools.

“That’s actually a great thing,” he says. “I say to young bands nowadays, don’t rely too much on the sort of gadgetry. Just play it all, learn it all, write it all because it’s better.”

While he remains enthusiastic about experimenting with technology – citing his love of tape loops and unusual recording techniques – McCartney believes there’s a difference between using tools creatively and becoming dependent on them.

“What will happen is a lot of people rely on it,” he says. “So you get records that sound like they’ve been made by gadgets. I don’t like that.”